On the number of Heisenberg characters of finite groups (Q6150286)

Let \(G\) be a finite group, an irreducible character \(\chi \in \mathrm{Irr}(G)\) is called an Heisenberg character if \(\ker \chi \supseteq [G,G,G]\). The group \(G\) is called an \(n\)-Heisenberg group if and only if it has exactly \(n\) Heisenberg characters. In the paper under review, the author characterizes \(n\)-Heisenberg groups for \(n \leq 5\). In particular, he proves the following results. Theorem 2.1. \(n=1\) if and only if \(G\) is perfect. Theorem 2.3. \(n=2\) if and only if \(|G/G'|=2\). Theorem 2.6. \(n=3\) if and only if \(|G/G'|=3\). Theorem 2.7. \(n=4\) if \(|G/G'|=4\). Theorem 2.9. \(n=5\) if and only if \(|G/G'|=5\) or \(|G/G'|=4\) and \(G\) has a Heisenberg character of degree two. From Theorem 2.9, it follows that the converse of Theorem 2.7 is not valid in general: the dihedral group \(G=D_{8n}\) (\(n \geq 1\)) has exactly five Heisenberg characters and \(|G/G'|=4\).